Photographer Daniel Morel And Agence France-Press Will Come To Court

 

NEW YORK, NY (September 22, 2010) – In a case that could set precedent in online copyright legislation and impact photographers around the world, oral arguments are scheduled to begin Friday in a New York City courtroom in freelance photojournalist Daniel Morel's claim against Agence France-Presse.

Morel has accused AFP of using, without his permission, his photographs from the January 2010 devastating earthquake in Haiti which Morel posted on TwitPic and Twitter shortly after the disaster struck.

AFP's claim against the photographer is that Morel has been "engaged in an antagonistic assertion of rights" after he objected to AFP's use of his images, which they acquired from his online feed.

AFP has held fast to their belief that Morel granted any third-party a non-exclusive license to his images by posting them on Twitter without making any notation that he was limiting the license granted to Twitter or third parties, while Morel had asked his lawyer to contact newspapers and Web sites where the images appeared (with AFP photo credits) to request the images be taken down or removed, along with telling multiple parties that AFP "had no right to distribute them."

For that last bit, AFP is now claiming Morel has been engaged in "commercial defamation." The photographer's New York attorney who sent numerous correspondence to AFP alleging copyright infringement and demanding exorbitant payment had also sent correspondence to numerous third parties, including AFP's customers, alleging copyright infringement and disparaging AFP.

AFP has been joined in its claim against Morel by Getty Images, CNN, ABC, and CBS. Together they're asking the court to rule the the photographer should not be allowed to pursue his claim that they stole his Haiti earthquake images.

AFP and its customers or affiliates are claiming that they “relied on this license and their respective uses did not constitute copyright infringement.”

"Unfortunately for Mr. Morel, in an attempt to transmit his spot news photographs of the Haiti earthquake to the outside world he apparently overlooked the the applicable terms and conditions of posting images on Twitter, or he made a decision that it was more important to get his pictures to the outside world than it was to worry about his property rights in those images," NPPA general counsel Mickey H. Osterreicher said today after reviewing the claims.

"In either case it resulted in the use of Morel's photographs by AFP and others who believed that they were entitled to publish them. This case is a perfect illustration of why anyone posting or uploading images to a Web site should read and understand the terms and conditions of that site before accepting them."

 

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